Featured News

Our latest Department newsletter is now available to download in PDF format here (the file may not display correctly with Firefox/Chrome pdf viewers -- in this case save it to a file and open it with e.g. Acrobat reader or Preview). Have a look at the wide range of work that we do in front-line research, teaching, public outreach and school education.

How an ion channel converts mechanical force into an electrical signal

The Physics Department is sad to announce the death of Professor Roger Cowley.
Roger was Dr Lee’s Professor of Experimental Philosophy and Fellow of Wadham College from 1988 to 2007.
He served two spells as Chairman of Physics, from 1993 to 1996 and then from 1998 to 2002. In 1973 he was the
first ever recipient of the Max Born Medal and Prize, and he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1978.
In 2008 he was awarded the Faraday Medal of the IoP "For pioneering work in the development and application

Lasers ignite 'supernovae' in the lab

The 2015 Breakthrough Prize for Fundamental Physics has been awarded to the Supernova Cosmology Project Team led by Prof. Saul Perlmutter (Berkeley) 'For the most unexpected discovery that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, rather than slowing as had been long assumed'.

Prof Dr Andrea Cavalleri awarded 2015 Max Born Medal and Prize

Many congratulations to Andrea Cavalleri (Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter
and University of Oxford) who has been awarded the 2015 Max Born Medal and Prize, which is given jointly by the UK Institute of Physics and the German Physical Society, for his pioneering work on ultra-fast studies of materials.

The Networked Quantum Information Technologies (NQIT) consortium of academic and industrial partners led by the Oxford Physics Department will deliver quantum technologies including building a small fully-functional and scalable quantum computer. NQIT is one of four hubs funded by the UK National Quantum Technologies Programme and will receive a total of almost £38m of government funding.